A Lie by Any Other Name is the Truth
by Athirae
Summary: Post-Avengers. Thor and Loki return to Asgard to receive Loki's sentencing: death. In his final moments, will Loki finally cease to deny Thor's incessant affections? Because to Loki, the truth is only a lie with a different name, and Thor may be the only one who can convince him otherwise. Thor/Loki


**I don't write fanfiction very often, but I'm in love with these characters (mostly Loki). I haven't seen Thor or The Avengers recently, so I did my best. Also don't read the comics. Just a mythology lover. I own nothing (except Loki's soul .)**

* * *

The cell was as cold, dark, and damp as the inside of a dragon's stomach, which was very well something Loki would have preferred. At least then, he would know the end had at last come. Rather, he was stuck, sitting like an obedient child with a muzzle over his mouth, waiting for the verdict of his mischief-making. As he leaned back on the skinny, wooden bench in his cell against the wan stone of the wall, though, he could only think of his brother.

Thor, whose whispers could be heard a Realm away. Thor, who had not spoken a word to him, not when they had finally returned to Asgard together like Thor had begged for, something Loki would hardly admit to himself he yearned to hear; not when he had led his younger brother before the All-Father to be chastised, ignoring the tensing of Loki with each word; not when he had delivered Loki to his new home—this prison cell—without any signs of anger at all, almost completely stoic if it weren't for the depressed note in his gait. That was two days ago.

Speak—or rather _think_, Loki thought snidely to himself—of the devil. A guard let Thor into the cell, the magick in the air buzzing as it was temporarily disturbed from its duty of caging the God of Mischief. Thor looked positively dreadful. His eyes were empty, as if he hadn't gotten any sleep in several days, and strands of his hair stuck out haphazardly, despite its usual almost insufferable state of care. Crossing the cell in two strides, Thor took Loki's face gingerly into his hands and traced the muzzle there without much thought before removing it.

Loki opened his mouth and stretched his jaw several times before looking at Thor and smiling. "What"—he cringed inwardly, his voice rough from disuse—"no hello?"

"Not this time, brother." Loki frowned at the name Thor continued to use with him, but there was no point in protesting: Thor was as hardheaded as a dog sometimes. He ignored the command and just continued to pounce joyously on the object of his affections.

_As if I'm an object of his affections_, Loki thought to himself. "Then?"

Thor sighed deeply. "They have decided your punishment; there was nothing I could do."

"I see." Loki grinned. "And?"

Thor's face twisted. "Do not smile at me like that, brother. It is your death they have decided upon."

It took effort, but Loki maintained the grin plastered on his face despite the fear and anger that welled up inside his chest. _Death? _His antics were to finally end? His parents and the others had finally given up on him—for good? "I see," he said matter-of-factly. "I suppose that puts you at ease."

Thor frowned further, looking down at his brother. "You wound me with your words."

Grin widening to expose his perfect teeth, Loki simply asked, "Do you expect anything less from me?"

At that, Thor strode across the cell, away from him, and glared heavily at the floor for a few moments. "I have always expected more."

Loki laughed. "Come now, Thor. Haven't you always slain monsters without much thought to their worth?" He stood from the bench. "Why lie to me about what you believe mine to be?" With each word, he took a small step toward his brother. Once he rested directly in front of him, Thor stormed off to the other side of the cell again, this time where Loki had come from, and Loki laughed, raising his voice a bit. "Tell me, _brother_," Loki sneered. Thor flinched at the sheer contempt dripping from the name like venom. "Did you even search for me after I fell? Did you even shed a single tear?"

"Of course I did!" Thor bellowed across the cell. It pained him that his brother would even think otherwise, and he let that fact be known.

Loki hissed, "Do not lie to me!" His green eyes narrowed, and his lips drew up into a feral snarl, yet he did not look as wild as he had on Midgard. Loki never unleashed his dark fury upon Thor, just cheap imitations of it.

"You are the master of lies, not I!" Thor argued. "I _looked_—I _mourned_—!"

Cutting him off, Loki spat, "You _lie, brother._ No one loves me—and no one ever has!"

Thor had it. He raised his voice until it bounced off the cell walls and threatened to deafen the occupants. "_I love you, brother! I have _always _loved you!_"

The words continued to vibrate the air in the following silence. Loki's brows were furrowed, his eyes squinted, imploring, his lips parted as if he had something to say that wouldn't come. Finally, he asked bitterly, as if he were utterly confused, "Why?"

Thor took several steps forward until he was before his younger brother and looked him straight in the eyes. "Because you are Loki." Thor knew it sounded like an idiotic answer, but sometimes, things were that simple. They didn't need to be twisted, complicated, and spat out. Sometimes, the plain, irrefutable facts were what people needed. "Because you are my brother, and there is not a part of you I don't love."

Loki shook his head, chuckling, and Thor knew instantly that he would continue to deny it. He would continue to feed the demon that had taken refuge in his heart long ago, even if he stopped believing in its cause or never had. "Even the part of me that killed hundreds of innocents?"

"Even that part." Loki needed to hear it, and as much as it pained Thor to admit it, it was true. Even when his brother had slaughtered others—even when he had tried to kill _him_, he never held it against him. If anything, he pitied him. It made him want nothing more than to draw his brother close, stroke his hair, and apologize for a million things that may or may not have been his fault.

Loki's eyes did not match his tone. His eyes were curious, and they sought answers Loki felt he would never possess. No amount of books or scrolls or magick would ever tell him the truth only his brother could give him. "Then, you are a fool."

A hand found its way to Loki's neck in a familiar grip he wanted to pull away from. No matter what he did, Thor still thought he was deserving. Thor refused to acknowledge the one truth that everyone else had: Loki was a monster—he was not worthy of anything, especially affection. He had tried his damnedest to commit the greatest of evils so his brother would stop denying that painfully obvious fact, but here Thor was, just as forthcoming with his love as he had always been; that was why Loki counted his battle with Midgard a defeat. It wasn't the massacre of the Chitauri. It wasn't the Hulk insulting his inferiority he had always known and denied. It wasn't the Avengers capturing him or even snapping a device over his mouth to cage in his protests.

No.

It was the love that continued to exist in Thor's eyes that told Loki he had failed. There was disappointment there, too, now, but still love. Always that.

"Call me dim. I would rather be a fool than a liar," Thor said, his passionate eyes still locked with Loki's, and that was why Loki did not dare pull away. "But you would rather be both." Those eyes narrowed in pain as Thor let a deep, shuttering breath out through his nose. "How could you do this? All I wanted was to be by your side." That hand slid away from his neck to cup his cheek more gently than Loki thought possible from the thunder god, and he wanted to scream at Thor for treating him like a flower and smashing everything else as if it were made of iron. "Is that such an awful thought for you? To be loved—to be my equal—that you cower from it and lie to yourself, that you must punish others to punish yourself?"

Loki broke their shared gaze, too ashamed to look his brother in the eye as he said, "It's too late now."

"Then, it has always been too late." And Loki wondered if he'd underestimated his brother's intelligence because that was the smartest verity that had ever come from his mouth.

"Shouldn't you be mourning then?" Loki chuckled with a small, tired smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"I never stopped." Thor's arms folded him into a hug. It was powerful, tight, and Loki silently thanked his brother for trusting his strength enough not to fear breaking him. "I love you, brother," Thor proclaimed yet again.

Loki knew he couldn't win—he had already lost. Perhaps he never stood a chance in the first place against his brother's obstinacy; he only wished he had discovered this before he had earned himself a death sentence. "I hate you, Thor," he murmured against his brother's shoulder as he pressed his forehead into it.

"Then, why are you crying?"

* * *

"Loki Liesmith, son of Laufey," this name angered Thor, "do you have any last words?"

In a small cloister set inside the expansive palace, Odin, Frigga, Thor, Loki, and an executioner had gathered. It was late in the evening, notable by the setting sun casting the world in an orange glow; it was the day Loki would die.

Per Thor's insistent, vehement requests, Odin had closed the execution to the public. He knew the cheers it would usher from a crowd and perhaps the attempts on Loki's life before the executioners axe could fall. Seeing that would wound his wife and son further, and it was something he himself did not want to witness.

Loki, hands bound in front of himself to display his ignominy, turned to the small crowd he still refused to call his family, even in his own mind. He knew what he wanted his last words to be. He had always known—and had always known whom he wanted to gift with them.

He met Thor's eyes and recalled his brother's words in that desolate land when he had taken him from the Avengers and pleaded with him. _You come home._

And he gave his long awaited response: "I'm home."

Loki could never have predicted his brother's reaction, but then again, when had he ever been able to predict Thor's actions? Thor rushed forward, ripped Loki away—out of the executioner's vicinity, and stumbled several steps away with him.

"Do not touch him!" Thor bellowed, and pulled Loki defensively to his chest. If Loki was surprised, he didn't show it. A mask had eclipsed his face ever since his words to his brother, and he wasn't about to let it slip. He wasn't about to show Thor the feelings that lay there—he would not hurt his brother again.

"Thor, stop acting like an insolent child this very instant!" demanded Odin, gesticulating in the direction of the dark-haired god, his biggest mistake. "Loki knows the implications of his actions as well as you do."

Before Thor could open his mouth to retort, Loki interrupted.

"It's alright," he said quietly.

Loki's hands slid up to his brother's face as best they could in his bonds, and he closed the distance between them, placing a chaste, lingering kiss on his brother's lips. "I hate you, Thor," he whispered against them. Loki didn't know if his actions would help heal his brother or if they would do more damage, but he supposed, or finally admitted to himself, that if he was going to be selfish, this was a better time to do so than he had picked all his life.

Thor's heart fell, and trying his best to hide the pain, he wrapped his arms around his younger brother and whispered near his ear, "Always more." He pulled back and gripped Loki's neck. His fingers slid through the soft hair there, and his thumb rubbed an obsessive circle behind Loki's ear.

"Even now," Loki murmured, smiling sincerely for the first time in ages, "I lose to you."

Thor reluctantly released Loki after that, his eyes never leaving the scene in front of him. Involuntarily, he flinched and gritted his teeth with every movement of the people gracing the stage, and when Loki finally went to his knees and bowed his head, Thor's fists were balled so tightly that they protested the abuse.

The axe went up, but Thor was not watching it glimmer in the day's receding light; he was committing every breath of his brother's to memory, for in a moment's time, they would abscond into nonexistence.

He felt as if his heart were on the chopping block instead—because when the blade dropped, his heart shattered. He fell to his knees, not caring who saw his lapse in dignity. His brother was dead, along with a vital part of himself.

* * *

For the first time in his life, Thor wanted to burn Asgard to the ground. Men and women alike celebrated the death of the liesmith that had plagued them for years. When Thor passed by, they would glance in his direction apologetically, quieting their cheers, but Thor could hear them nonetheless when they fervently wondered aloud if Loki had tricked Thor out of his affections.

He found himself in the mead hall with his jovial friends by the end of the night, but he paid them no mind. He stared down at his food, heaped in front of him. It would taste like ash, Thor thought to himself, because his stomach wanted nothing to do with it at the moment.

After a while, Sif, cocky and smiling like always, strode over to Thor, yet her face dropped upon seeing him, still sitting in front of his full plate apathetically.

"You haven't eaten a thing," she observed. "Are you alright?"

Thor turned to her slowly, looked her straight in the eyes, and promptly burst into tears. Every smile, every laugh, every question, observation, mention of his brother's name: he took them all as a stab to the heart, and it was finally too much. He buried his face into his hands and shook with sobs.

After all these years, it wasn't his brother's antics that put him over the top.

It was the lack of them.

* * *

Two weeks had passed, and Thor had never left his chambers. Odin and Frigga had knocked on his door, as well as Sif and the Warriors Three, but he answered none of them. Storms raged outside his window. The lightning lit up his expansive room in electric blue and magenta, and thunder roared so violently it shook valuable objects from his shelves.

Yet there was no rain.

That privilege was reserved for Thor. Tears streaked down his cheeks, relentless, configured of all the sorrow seeping from his broken heart so that no emotions showed themselves in the god anymore, not in a downward turn of his lips, not in furrowed brows, not in balled fists, not in gritted teeth.

"Brother," a familiar voice called, just as it did every night, and the same green-eyed, raven-haired man with a mirthless smirk and a thin build slid to sit in the windowsill. Thor ignored him.

"Why won't you acknowledge me?" Loki asked with a playful grin. "I thought you loved me."

"I do," Thor murmured, voice nearly lost in the spiteful thunder. "But you are not real."

Loki took hold of Thor's hands, rested in his lap carelessly, and asked, "Can you not see me? Feel me?"

Barely perceptible, Thor's head lifted in a slight nod.

"Then, why do you deny me now? Perhaps you are a fool," Loki tried to tease.

"So be it."

As Loki opened his mouth, a knock came at the door, along with Frigga's voice. Upon hearing it, Loki vanished, just as Thor knew he would—because his brother no longer existed. He had watched his body burn on the pyre. He had held those ashes in his hands when everyone else had departed to celebrate.

The brother he saw now was only a grief-induced hallucination.

* * *

Loki's heart tore. Perhaps he had wanted to see if his brother had lied about all that he had ever told him. Perhaps he had wanted to torture him. But even to something Thor believed was his imagination, he would never admit that he hated his brother.

A simple trick was all it had taken to escape his death, and no one was the wiser—yet rather than absconding to a part of the Realms he would be unseen and safe, he had come to his brother. Every night.

Thor continued to grieve, to skip his meals, and to stare out of the large window in his room at the storm his own sorrow had produced. Loki had never thought his brother would mourn him this much, or mourn him at all, and his throat constricted when he remembered falling from the Bifrost. Had Thor undergone such similar distress then? And yet Loki had accused him of otherwise in the prison cell, had even accused him of lying about his affection, but as Loki saw and heard every night, Thor continued to proclaim the same idiotic feelings.

Why would he lie to something he didn't even think existed?

On the eighteenth night after his supposed death, Loki routinely visited his brother again, who was still sitting in the same chair, still staring out of the same window at the same stormy scene.

Without hesitation, Loki did not use the same word to greet Thor like he did every other day—these words were not a hello. They were a promise, an admission, and the utter truth.

The truth from a liesmith's tongue was a powerful thing, powerful enough that Thor turned in his chair with wide eyes, leapt up, and swept his brother into a crushing hug, crying out all of his fears and happiness, cursing and praising, threatening and worshipping, but mostly promising to never _ever _let go again.

* * *

"_I love you, Thor."_


End file.
